I pick this one for me—touched by small kindnesses and sudden pops of beauty while swinging from high to low, from lethargic to frantic. Watching for joy even as I mislay and forget details (like this post), dig out from the mess, and create new ones. The robin swollen with eggs to come, listens closely outside my window for the worms beneath her feet. The neighbor’s car gleams lapis lazuli in the parking lot sunshine. Art in progress sings a whispery siren song.

It’s good to be reminded to watch and listen, because Joy is all around, waiting to be welcomed in.

Today, I’m off to start applying for Medicaid, then browse a big antique mall for an idea that’s percolating.

I know its early days, but we all love it here. We love the funky, older construction of the duplex, the friendly neighbors, the bend-over-backwards landlords, the wealth of shops and amenities, and the joy of family rediscovered.

So, pinch me. I think I’ve come home.

(P.S.) My Etsy shop is open again (the link is in the sidebar at left). Not that there’s anything new yet, but some folks wanted to know. And there WILL be new stuff. Soon.

I’ve been reading Martha Beck’s The Joy Diet, a self-help/Life Coachy recipe for uncovering and going after your Heart’s Desire. If you haven’t been in therapy for decades, and feel like there’s something missing or off in your life, this would be a decent place to start.

I started therapy when Ronald Reagan was President, so none of the material is new to me. Still, I like hearing things presented in a new way, especially when the author has heart and a sense of humor.

Take her chapter on Treats. These are the things/experiences we’re to reward ourselves for taking a risk toward that Heart’s Desire. Very Pavlovian. But Beck also wants her readers to give themselves at least two other Treats a day, just because folks generally don’t do that enough. I liked that.

And Beck’s definition of “Treat?” Anything that makes you feel like smiling. Since most of us are programmed to grimace automatically in public, she gives homework to help the chronically repressed find what actually warms their cockles. I like how she takes her readers by the hand, breaks each step to Nirvana into tiny, measurable actions instead of leaving them stranded in nebulous Woo-Woo Land. And I like how she compares us to pigs.

So some of these ideas percolated in my hind-brain as I played with my art journal this weekend. I worked on a cross-over spread, taking characters from a short story I’m writing and doing cool things with letters they’re writing to each other. I adapted a Dixie Chicks song that I love and made it my character’s. I treated pages from an antique, hand-written journal to use as their stationary. It thrilled me to come at these characters and their story from a different angle, and to make something so gorgeous.

But, when I tried to write my new lyrics on this scrumptious paper, no marker or pen I owned made a consistent mark. I worked for hours, going over the blotchy, ragged letters again and again. It still ended up looking like a serial killer’s tease for the FBI.

I stopped when my hand cramped too much to hold a pen, and I was willing to let it go. Some experiments don’t work. That’s why they’re called experiments.

But as Henry walked across my shins in bed this morning, I got one of those lightbulb ideas. The problem wasn’t with my pens, it was the paper. I’d made it too slick. How could I give it a little bite?

I jumped out of bed and went to work, mixing matte medium with a few drops of gesso, adding paint, then taking fresh pages out of the hand-written journal and applying this concoction with a roller and paper towels. I tested one corner with a gel pen before spraying the pages with fixative. It took the pen beautifully.

The whole process filled me with joy. Setting a problem aside, receiving the answer as I passed through the Creative Gold Mine between sleep and wakefulness, using media I didn’t own two months ago, and actually creating a thing the way I imagined it in my head.

When I finished the spread, I couldn’t stop grinning. Here was everything I loved—my writing, my art, my music, Richard Armitage. . . Layers of meaning overlapped like the layers of paper (I love a metaphor you can actually touch), and color fed some hungry animal inside me.

It’s autumn. Time for apple cider and the annual ugly chest cold. Time to put away shorts and see if the crotch in any of my old jeans will embarrass me in public. Time to start work on my Solstice cards and pull out my Happy Light.

I love autumn, even if the waning light makes me think St. John of the Cross was probably bipolar and talking about winter when he coined the term dark night of the soul. I love the smell of corn dust and how it hangs in the air. I love the slant of the sun as it hits a golden point on its arc, how it burns through a single, curry-colored leaf stuck in the weeds.

I’m profoundly aware of how much I’m enjoying autumn this year. Even with bronchitis and a pantheon of prescription inhalers on my counter, I watch the squirrels in their pre-winter frenzy and feel joy rise up. Like a breath. Like a sigh. Clear lungs are not required.

I’ve had moments of bipolarness over the past five months. Moments—not days or weeks or months. Moments where the illness broke through to remind me to stay sharp. I can’t go back to sleep. And I also don’t fight or fret when the illness presents itself. This is me, too. All of this is me.

My energy amazed me, and the way my mind opened to possibility and change. Over the summer, I catalogued my apartment—the rotting furniture, the squeeze and mess of a tiny space, all the ways I made do when the idea of doing more overwhelmed me. Getting a new bathtub and replacing the damaged linoleum floor suddenly made anything possible.

On my trips to Minneapolis to see friends, I also visited IKEA. I gave away or trashed furniture that was too big, too ruined or too inefficient and replaced it with four beautiful pieces put together with my own two hands plus one great recliner from the Club Furniture. Now our living room fits us. There’s room for the cats to chase each other, new places to nap, and a more inviting entry (rather than sliding in sideways and banging a hip on some ouchy corner).

Before

After

Before

After

I’m also working on more efficient storage. I installed roll-out, metal baskets under my kitchen sink and bathroom vanity. I cleaned out a skinny cupboard in the kitchen, found tubs that fit the narrow space, and got seldom-used art supplies out of the way.

Before

After

IKEA carries a wall cabinet—basically, an open box with mounting hardware. I tossed the hardware and stacked two of those on my coat closet shelf to wrangle the magazines I glean for greeting card captions (My closets have lots of height, so I’m always looking for stackables). There was plenty of room left over to store other crafty stuff. No more cascades of musty magazines when I get out the broom.

Autumn is the season for nesting. We make ourselves snug and warm, surround ourselves with treasures and love, settle in for the long winter. Nesting makes a place a home. We should find comfort and relief there. And joy.

Sitting here at my desk, with Henry curled on his pillow, I listen to James Vincent McMorrow and feel my home breathing with me.

In a bipolar life, there are days, weeks, sometimes months, where the illness never lets up. Most of the time, I can ride those long spells. They’re a fact of my life. I understand that. But, I suppose like anyone with a chronic illness, the relentlessness of it sometimes swamps me. The despair of dealing with the illness combines with the despair it creates. The extra weight guarantees sinking to the bottom and makes it that much harder to fight my way back to the surface.

I’ve been going through one of those spells—a long season of black. It’s been a different kind of hard this time without my two water wings of compulsive eating and compulsive spending. Oh, the compulsions are still there. I still pace my kitchen like a caged bobcat, opening all the cupboards, the fridge, the pantry, hoping I slipped and brought home something, anything, that will dull the wild scrabbling in my brain. And even when I’ve budgeted a trip to Des Moines, have cash to pay for a movie and gas, the urge to keep spending is a fish hook under my sternum. Pulling, pulling always pulling.

This past week my Start With One Serving mantra saved me from getting lost in food, but I still gained a couple of pounds. Compared to other similar seasons, though, that’s nothing. And while I’m on the edge of nothing in my checking account, I have enough in my piggy bank at home to get through the month. Since I paid all my bills, put money in my car fund, and made my planned Visa payment, this, too, is far from the disaster such seasons usually bring.

I’m sure the tension of fighting these old behaviors contributes to the illness itself, but the fight is required if I’m ever to find any freedom. I know how lucky I am to even have the option of fighting. I’ve met others like me who don’t, who don’t have an inkling of insight, who are utterly lost in the illness itself. I understand them. I am them. But, I’m also this.

There was one day last week where I thought about surrendering to being lost. What if I quit fighting and just turned into the crazy cat lady on the corner? Would that be so bad? There’s a siren song to mental illness that can be so seductive. Go to sleep, it says. I’ll take care of everything.

But, after all this time, I recognize that purring song. It’s part of me, but not all of me. So, I start looking for joy. Tiny moments. Gentle kindnesses. Things that make me close my eyes in appreciation. The light on Emmet as he watches the birds. The silky slide of the water as I swim. A song on my Pandora station. A kind note from an almost-friend. The perfect taste of a vanilla latte with one squirt of raspberry. The ballet-like fight scenes in Captain America’s new movie. The wonder of creating an exquisite background paper for a card. The smell of rain. A deep breath. An old feeling of lightness that comes while driving through town in the orange light of dusk. A chance to listen so someone else in pain.

My friend, Lily, once told me something that has soothed me for years. Sometimes, all you can do is hang on. This is true. Hang on until the season turns. Hang on because this—whatever it is—won’t last. Grip the rope and wait. Most of my life I’ve focused on the tension of waiting, the feeling of not being able to hang on much longer, the sense of fingernails ripping away. What I’m finding is that it’s even more important to notice how beautiful the rope is and to treasure it.

Like this:

In an unusual stroke of magnanimity, the Bipolar Gods (Bill and Ted, I think) have granted me a little respite. Nine days since my last urge to bolt. Nine days of saving money instead of spending it. Nine days of reacquainting myself with my inks and papers. Nine days of reading quietly in the evenings with Missy Higgins on the stereo and Emmett providing a nice head rest on the back of my chair.

It’s not until the cycling stops that I can see I’ve just passed through Hell. As I’m going through it, I always feel I’m managing pretty well, keeping my head down, stepping carefully through the lava and acid. I take short sips of breath to keep from burning my lungs. I brace myself for the demons that jump out of the dark with their pointy teeth and pokey tridents. I squeeze into the tiniest target possible.

But when I pass through the Gates, the relief is so shocking—fresh air on scalded skin, the ability to uncurl and stand upright. This time I realized I hadn’t taken a deep breath in six months.

And once the shock wears off there’s so much to do—salvage, and reconstruction, and reinforcement of the structures that will carry me through the next Descent. But, there’s joy in the ability to do instead of survive. And moments of pause to feel the delicious weightlessness of No Mood. Always knowing this, too, will pass, but appreciating every hour Bill and Ted grant me.

My friend, David, at Live & Learn introduces me to amazing music every week. I found Missy Higgins through him and want to share this lovely music video of hers. It might help with whatever is burning you today.

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April is National Poetry Month. Who knew? Congress obviously has other fish to fry than announcing such news to the country. But our local library knew and sponsored a wonderful event the other night.

A retired English teacher from a nearby school district gave a program on Robert Frost. He told about Frost’s life and struggles as a poet and a man, then sprinkled the talk with performances of Frost’s poetry. I say performances because these were more than readings or recitations—they were dramatic expressions of Frost’s words and emotions. I was moved to tears during every poem, and now have a whole new appreciation for the man and his poetry.

As I walked home under a star-laden sky, I felt like some empty cup inside me had been filled—the part of me that loves theater and folk music from other countries, the part of me that dances and chants, the part of me that seeks out museums and art festivals, the part of me that lives in color and moves in rhythm. I couldn’t put my finger on it. What was that expansive feeling that had been watered by Robert Frost? Then the stars told me. I feel human.

• • •

A Minor Bird

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.

And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.

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Plans are coming together for my Callinda Celebration Party on April 21. I’ve reserved the community room in our apartment complex, made and sent the invitations. Just when I was ready to raid my little savings account (the start of a new car fund) in order to cater the food, Mom offered to pay for everything. What a wonderful gift! I fully intended to celebrate in style, not put out a bowl of M&Ms and cheap punch, which is what I can afford. I wanted to celebrate life now, not wait a decade when I may or may not be able to buy a car. Get fear out of the way and miracles happen.

Now I’m in the process of making the party favors. I wanted to create a little piece of art for everyone to take away with them, so I printed out quotes from the book and made a little platform for them. This involves sewing fabric onto cardboard (yes, I had to learn how to sew again), lots of paint, stamping, embossing, beading, funky fabrics, sequins, fibers and the accompanying glues, tapes and tools. I’m taking this:

And turning it into this:

I can only do three or four a day (sewing into cardboard, even with a thimble, is a little rough on the fingers), but in the meantime I can attend to other party details. Like ordering an alien-looking, Zen floral arrangement for the table, and washing up the glass service party trays from my mom’s basement (and a recent find at a local thrift store).

Assemblage is a study in details—one more layer, one more bead, one more texture. I’m hoping my party will hum with subtext and delight the eye. The overriding theme is joy, and I can hear the laughter already.

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We’ve had our first real snow accumulation over the past week. Here’s what the neighbor kitty-corner from me did with it.

This is the corner of a pretty busy street, so it’s even more fun to watch people stop and hold up traffic to take a gander. Folks park and get out to talk to him while he’s working. A very humble, shy guy who’s not quite comfortable with all the attention.

Ahh! Now the day care gaggle from the Lutheran church up the street is gathered around King Kong taking pictures. This is just too cute!

What I love even more than the art or the public’s reaction is that the artist is Hispanic—a much-maligned minority in our White Bread town. HeeHeeHee.